Cato the Younger becomes quaestor in, probably,…

Philip II, son of the Seleucid king Philip I Philadelphus, briefly reigns over parts of Syria in the 60s BCE, as a client king under Pompey.

He competes with his second cousin Antiochus XIII Asiaticus for the favors of the great Roman general, but Pompey will have none of them.

In 64 BCE, Pompey marches into Syria and has Antiochus XIII Asiaticus deposed and killed by a Syrian chieftain, Sampsiceramus I. Antiochus' death is traditionally said to have ended the Seleucid dynasty, but he is survived by Philip II Philoromaeus for a short time.

No coins of Philip II are known, which is unusual for Seleucid rulers (the ephemeral Seleucus V Philometor is the only other king for which this is the case).

This may indicate that Philip did not rule in any of the mint cities.

Pompey now reconstitutes Syria, too, as a Roman province.

The Romans occupy Damascus in 64 BCE.

Although Rome will eventually permit the Nabataean kingdom to retain control of the city, it will subsequently be incorporated it into the league of ten cities known as the Decapolis because it is considered such an important center of Greco-Roman culture.

Sampsiceramus I is confirmed in power and his family is left to rule the region surrounding Emesa under Roman suzerainty following the death of Antiochus XIII,

Client rulers like Sampsiceramus I can police routes and preserve the integrity of Rome without cost to Roman manpower or to the Roman treasury; they are probably paid for the privilege.

Emesa is added to the domains of Sampsiceramus I, but the first Emesani capital is Arethusa, a city north of Emesa, along the Orontes River.

The kingdom of Sampsiceramus I is the first of Rome’s client kingdoms on the desert’s fringes.

The kingdom’s boundaries extend from the Beqaa Valley in the west to the border of Palmyra in the east, from Yabrud in the south to Arethusa in the north and Heliopolis.

Galatia, in the settlement of 64 BCE, becomes a client-state of the Roman empire, the old constitution disappears, and three chiefs (wrongly styled "tetrarchs") are appointed, one for each of the region's Gaulish tribes.

But this arrangement soon gives way before the ambition of one of these chiefs, Deiotarus, the contemporary of Cicero and Julius Caesar, who makes himself master of the other two chiefdoms and is finally recognized by the Romans as 'king' of Galatia.

The two Hasmonean brothers, whose worldliness has alienated most of their subjects, have waged a brutal struggle in the kingdom of Judah, in 64 BCE finally appeal to Pompey to be their arbiter.

Pompey, who is reorganizing the lands of the newly conquered Seleucid kingdom, now has an excuse to intervene in Judea.

Pompey attempts unsuccessfully to arbitrate between the brothers.

King Mithridates VI of Pontus, after his defeat by Roman General Pompey in 63 BCE, flees with a small army from Colchis (modern Georgia) over the Caucasus Mountains to the Crimea.

Establishing himself at Panticapaeum (Kerch), he makes plans to raise yet another army to invade Italy by way of the Danube.

His eldest living son, Machares, viceroy of Cimmerian Bosporus, is unwilling to aid his father.

Mithridates VI had Machares killed, and Mithridates VI takes the throne of the Bosporan Kingdom.

Mithridates now orders the conscriptions and preparations for war.

His youngest son, Pharnaces II, leads a rebellion against his father, joined by Roman exiles in the core of Mithridates VI's Pontic army.

Mithridates withdraws to the citadel, where, after failing in an attempt to poison himself, Mithridates orders a Gallic mercenary to kill him.

His body is sent to Pompey, who buries his enemy in the rock-cut tombs of his ancestors in Amasia, the old capital of the Kingdom of Pontus.

Pharnaces II makes his submission to Pompey, who confirms him as ruler of the new province he creates, the Bosporus Cimmerius (Crimean region).

Pompey has organized Bithynia (annexed in 74) and Pontus from about 65 to 63 BCE into a single Roman province with its capital at Nicomedia.

Pompey moves south in 63 BCE and establishes Roman supremacy in Phoenicia and Coele-Syria, incorporating these regions into the new Syrian province.

The aristocracy at Rome, including Cicero, opposes the proposed annexation of Egypt.

Auletes, seeking to retain Roman support, sends troops to assist Pompey in southern Syria.

Pompey, seeing in Hyrcanus a means of controlling the temple-state, directs his Roman legions in laying siege to and capturing Jerusalem.

He imposes taxes on the Jews and curtails Jewish dominions, granting virtual autonomy to a group of ten or eleven Hellenized cities in Syria and Palestine, henceforth to be known as the Decapolis.

The Romans intend the league to be a means of mutual protection and security against the Greek cities’ Semitic neighbors.

He places the league under the jurisdiction of the newly appointed governor of Syria.

Pompey restores Hyrcanus to the high priesthood and some semblance of civil authority, but without the title of king adopted by his predecessors.

Thus, eighty years of independent Jewish sovereignty end, and a period of Roman dominion begins.